Grace Thoughts

Guest (Male): Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelley.

Tim Kelley: Now, you can live in positional truth but never have really any real-time application of that truth. So, it might not help you that much. Experiential truth is truth I can live in. I can take it and actually have it impact my life in time and space and influence my life. That's experiential truth.

I probably speak a good mixture of both, but today I want to spend more time in positional truth than anything. Because what positional truth does is, when we grasp it and we think of it and we meditate on it, it takes our eyes and elevates them beyond the horizontal into the vertical. And when my eyes are up there, I don't see what's really happening out here.

And that's the idea. Because out here is heartache, and out here is confusion, and out here is pain, and out here is grief, and out here is loss—all those things that we go through in life. But when I take my eyes and elevate them out of the temporal into the eternal and see the great work of God, it makes the things on the horizontal plane shrink, or at the very least, it puts them into a whole different perspective, doesn't it? It magnifies Christ and it shrinks us.

Now, throughout August, we're going to be preaching random, unconnected messages on purpose. I was just reading through the Bible, oh, I don't know how long ago it was now, and through the book of Hebrews, and I found that this same statement came up five times in the book of Hebrews. And I wrote it down. I said, "Isn't that interesting?" And I waited until this morning to put them all together and see what these things mean.

So, let me just start here in Hebrews chapter 12. These do not go starting in Hebrews 1. I'm jumping all over the place here. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him..."

What was the joy? The joy of his love, the joy of fellowship with man, the joy of restored relationship, all the things that compelled him into redemption, all the things that created the incarnation of Christ, why he came here. "For the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is—look at this now—is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." It reminds me of the hotel room. I was just sitting there resting. Nothing for me to do. The work was over. "Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that they may not grow weary or fainthearted."

So, we see here, and we'll see four other places in the book of Hebrews where Jesus is sitting down on the right hand of God. Now, why did he sit down at the right hand of God? First of all, we have the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, which we celebrate on Easter, the ascension of Christ, him ascending back into the heavenlies.

But we don't always see something called the session of Christ. It's not a term that's really flexed around that much. That's what they call it—the session of Christ—is when he sits back down on the right hand of God. So, this is what we're talking about today. We're going after the ascension, the session of Christ.

Now, why was he able to sit down? Because this, this right here, was God's very best. It was his best. When God looked at the human race and what sin brought into the human race, when he saw death and the grief that death causes, when he saw disease and the physical and emotional pain that disease causes, when he saw aging and the process of aging, when he saw loss and he saw sin and he saw addictions and he saw murder and children being abused and all these nasty things that happen on planet Earth.

He goes, "How do I deliver man from the effects of sin? How do I give man hope outside of sin?" So, there was a council of God in Acts 2:23, and the wisdom of God got together to create a plan. The plan was motivated by the love of God, and that plan was implemented by the power of God.

And this was the plan: We'll send our son. I myself will leave heaven and take on the form of a man. I'll live amongst them for 33 years. I will die and shed my blood as the only perfect man that ever lived. I'll shed my blood on this cross. I'll resurrect, I'll ascend, and I'll sit right back down where I left, on the right hand of the Father. At that point, my work is done. Redemption is done. There is nothing else to be added to it. Nothing else can be attributed to it. It's done.

So, the cross, the burial, resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ is the very best God has for us. When he sees what sin has brought into our lives and the impact of sin in our lives, this is his answer. He doesn't go, "Eh, give them this." No, this is his very best. All the wisdom of God is in this. All the love of God is in this. All the power of God is in this. All of who God is, all of what heaven is, is all wrapped into that cross so you and I could have something other than just the effects of sin and the squalor of humanity on Earth before him.

So, the joy was complete. He sat down on the right hand. The right hand always points to power and equality and authority. So, then we go to Hebrews chapter 1. We see him again. 1:1: "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets." This is the Jewish audience he has here. He goes, "God used to speak to us through the prophets." He goes, "But in these days, New Testament days, in these days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."

Then he describes Jesus: "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And by making purification for sins..." See it again, "by making purification for sins, then what happened? He sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high." So, Jesus, the express image of God. He says, "If you want to see the Father, just look at me."

John 14:6, John 1:1, John 1:4, John 1:10, John 1:14, John 1:18. If you want to see the Father, you want to see who God is, just look at Jesus. Maybe you've said this, maybe your kids have asked you this: "How do we know what God's like if you can't see him? How can I believe in something that's never been seen?" Well, the answer is easy. He has been seen. 2,000 years ago, his name was Jesus.

That was God in human flesh. So, when we want to see who God was, we can simply look in our Gospels and see exactly who he was. When we did our Nature of God series back four or five months ago, whatever that was, we started in Exodus 34, 35, and 36 where it talked about God describing himself to Moses on Mount Sinai.

He gave a verbal description of who he was. He let known his own reputation to Moses. But this goes way beyond Moses, better than Moses, as the book of Hebrews says. Jesus, not only did he describe himself, he became man and lived that nature out. The word nature is hupostasis. It can be translated, and where we grab a word you see in the Amplified Bible, title deed. He's the title deed of all who God is.

Now, the Gospels are often debated as to exact interpretation, based upon if you're a dispensationalist or covenant theologian, whatever it is. I'm not going to get into any of that. But there's one thing that's consistent throughout the Gospels, and that's the character and nature of God. We see who God was. We see his nature, we see his heart.

When Jesus in Mark chapter 1 reached out and touched a leper with his bare hands, unafraid of his disease, that was the heart of God. When he looked at the masses, the 4,000 or 5,000 people who hadn't eaten, it says his heart was moved with compassion. That was the heart of God. When he saw the man consumed with demons in Gadara, touched him, delivered him, restored his sanity to him—that was the heart of God.

When the woman with the issue of blood just touched the hem of his garment and it said power or virtue left him—that was God. That was God's heart. You saw God's heart there. When he said, "Suffer not the little children to come to me"—that was God. I want to know who God is, I want to know how he thinks, I look at Jesus and I get that picture: love, restoration, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, empathy.

And as we see in Matthew 23, disdain for man-made arrogant religion. That's who God was. Jesus ended the sin issue forever, then he sat down. And sin, the very thing that severed our relationship with God in the first place, the very nature of sin that prevails against us, that lives inside of us, that keeps us self-centered and not Christ-centered.

Hebrews 10:10: "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, when he offered for all time—past, present, and future—a single sacrifice for all sin..." That's the cross. If you're listening on CD, I'm pointing at a cross.

"He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he perfected for all time Andre Peneau—ultimate synonym of the first service, I picked on him—Andre Peneau, perfected for all time." Hallelujah!

Now, I want to balance this because I've talked to his family, and there's probably some things they may say, "Really, Pastor Kelley? Really? I got videotape I want to show you." No, he's perfected for all time. But then it says this: "those who are being sanctified." So, he's perfected for all time. He stands before God perfected because Jesus sat down.

If Jesus was still redeeming, there might be a problem here. If Jesus is still redeeming, we still could be lost. But he's sitting down, and he finished the work when he sat down. And now that same work of grace of salvation, that same work of grace does the work of transformation. That's what it means by "those who are being sanctified." He's still making us like himself.

So, the work of eternal life and salvation is all a work of God, and the work of becoming more like Christ in life is all a work of God. So, there's nothing left for us to do but come boldly before the throne of grace, Hebrews 4:16, to obtain help. There's nothing left to secure for man, nothing more Christ needs to do. Our standing with God is now non-negotiable and untouchable. "Sat down" is an aorist participle. It was a once-for-all act. He isn't standing up again. And when he does, it's going to be to come to take us home.

Now, this is what we do. It's like we double pay. If you go to the mall and you buy something at Best Buy, let's say you buy this brand new memory stick for $19.99, 64 gig, and I'm walking out with my little Best Buy bag. And I thought, "You know what? That was too good of a deal. I think I want to go pay more." I go back to the register: "Can I double pay for this again? Because I feel as though I haven't really paid enough for this, so can I double pay again?"

We do that all the time, spiritually speaking. We look at where we have fallen short and we double pay with guilt, we double pay with man-made work, we double pay with religion, we double pay with vain obedience. We double pay. Christ says, "You don't have to do anything to impress me. You don't have anything to appease me. I'm appeased. I'm not appeased by what you've done. I'm appeased by what I did. I sat down. There's nothing left for me to do. There's certainly nothing left for you to do."